2025 Texas sessionsRegular and both called sessions have ended. This index covers House and Senate bills, not resolutions. Statuses come from official reports.

2025 · Regular session · House bill

HB1106

Effective September 1, 2025, HB1106 changes the Family Code's child-protection definitions. “Abuse” and “neglect” do not include a responsible caregiver's refusal to affirm a child's perception of their gender or expressed sexual…

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Official caption: Relating to the definitions of child abuse and neglect.

Signed by governorSource-checked explanation published

Official report lists House author(s): Shaheen, Wharton, Barry, Capriglione, Luther. This does not identify sponsors or amendment drafters.

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Bill explanation published · Version and amendment review scope is stated below · Individual amendment records may not be separately annotated.

Bill highlights

Selected points from the published explanation. Follow each point to its source-linked context; conditions and limits may matter.

Effective September 1, 2025, HB1106 changes the Family Code's child-protection definitions. “Abuse” and “neglect” do not include a responsible caregiver's refusal to affirm a child's perception of their gender or expressed sexual orientation.
The protected category is broader than parents alone.
The act adds these specific exclusions; it does not repeal the other abuse and neglect grounds concerning physical injury, sexual abuse, abandonment or failure to provide necessary care.

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What does it do?

Effective September 1, 2025, HB1106 changes the Family Code’s child-protection definitions. “Abuse” and “neglect” do not include a responsible caregiver’s refusal to affirm a child’s perception of their gender or expressed sexual orientation. The gender provision expressly includes refusing to use a child’s preferred name or pronouns, even if the name was legally changed. Final law

The protected category is broader than parents alone. The existing definition of a person responsible for a child’s care, custody or welfare includes parents, guardians, conservators, foster parents, specified family and household members, school personnel and volunteers, and child-care personnel and volunteers. Family Code Section 261.001(5)

The act adds these specific exclusions; it does not repeal the other abuse and neglect grounds concerning physical injury, sexual abuse, abandonment or failure to provide necessary care. It also does not create a general exemption from all other laws or decide every dispute involving a child’s name, treatment or school. Whether other conduct meets a separate legal ground depends on the facts and applicable law. The new exclusions themselves contain no express severe-mental-or-emotional-harm exception.

What changed along the way?

The introduced bill would have placed the exclusions in a separate section. The House committee substitute instead inserted them directly into Section 261.001’s abuse and neglect definitions and used the final wording about the child’s perception of gender. The House committee, engrossed, Senate committee and enrolled operative texts match.

All five indexed floor proposals were read; none became law:

Mihaela Plesa: limit the exclusions to parents rather than the broader responsible-caregiver category. Failed.
Josey Garcia: add forcing, coercing or causing a child to participate in defined conversion therapy to the abuse definition. Failed. The proposal covered specified practices or treatments by a health-care provider or nonprofit organization aimed at changing sexual orientation, behavior, gender identity/expression or same-sex attraction.
Venton Jones: place the neglect exclusion in a separate subdivision and make both new exclusions expire September 1, 2030. Failed. The enacted exclusions have no such expiration date.
Jolanda Jones: change the proposed abuse exclusion into an express inclusion of the described refusal and remove the bill’s neglect changes. Failed.
Nicole Collier: preserve an abuse/neglect finding when the refusal causes severe mental or emotional harm. Withdrawn on third reading—not adopted and not defeated in a recorded adoption vote.

The four failed second-reading amendments were considered May 13, 2025; Collier withdrew her proposal May 14. Governor Abbott signed the bill June 20. Final passage was 85–59 in the House, with two present but not voting, and 20–11 in the Senate. History · Text versions · Introduced · House substitute · Engrossed · Senate committee · Amendment index · Plesa · Garcia · Venton Jones · Jolanda Jones · Collier

For the full amendment record, open the official amendment index.

Official bill versions

Compare the published text versions in the official text index. A change is not attributed to a specific amendment here without a verified record.

Who could benefit—and who could bear the costs?

Parents and other covered caregivers who decline the specified affirmation gain an express statutory exclusion from these child-protection definitions. For children seeking recognition of their gender or sexual orientation, the same provision limits the ability to rely on that refusal as abuse or neglect under Chapter 261. Those are the legal tradeoffs; the bill and fiscal notes do not measure family well-being, mental-health outcomes or the number of investigations affected.

All three indexed Legislative Budget Board notes anticipate no significant state fiscal impact and no local-government fiscal impact, assuming the Department of Family and Protective Services can absorb costs within existing appropriations. They give no quantified two-year/five-year total and do not establish that the law has no nonfinancial effects. Introduced note · House-substitute note · Engrossed note

Official sources

Catalog report retrieved 2026-10-25. Check the official record for corrections or later changes.